Butterfly
by lamina terminalis
Summary: Bill Adama visits Laura Roslin while they are searching for the Tylium ship. Missing scene at the end. Spoilers to "Disquiet follows my soul" and some insights into following episodes up to "the Oath". Warning some mild sexual content and references to New Caprica smoking. Rated mature, just in case.


He slowly pushed the hatch open and closed it quietly behind him, engaging the lock. He slowly moved in her loaned quarters, silently. She must have heard him, but made no attempt to acknowledge him or greet him. She was in her bathrobe, sitting on the sofa, bare legs curled under her, and reading a book before a long night sleep. She had turned off all lights and lit some candles around the room. He knew she never liked the cool glow of the artificial neon lighting of the metallic cabin, just the borrowed functional quarters of an officer in the military, unwelcoming and cold. He stood in the entrance, looking at her, the way the ever changing lights of the flames lit her concentrated face, the moving shadows on the fabric of her robe, her long legs disappearing under her in the softness of the cushions spread on the sofa. Today, the flames were friendly, bringing her warmth and comfort as she was absorbed in her reading, lost in the escape from reality that the book was providing: a reprieve.

Looking at her in the darkness, he remembered their earlier conversation. She had jogged along the corridors of the spaceship, flushed and happy of the respite the sudden absence of the chemotherapy side effects had brought to her.

 _"_ _Maybe tomorrow isn't coming. Maybe today is all we have left. And maybe, just maybe I've earned the right to live a little before I die…haven't I"_ she had begged, her voice breaking. _"What do you think? Haven't I?"_ She repeated, looking for an answer in his deep dark blue eyes. When he conceded, she added _"Guess what? So have you!"_

He remembered the courage of this woman, thrown by shear chance into the seat of presidency, her dedication, her unwavering faith in their survival. How could he deny her dying wish of living fully the last few weeks of her life?

She had sealed her statement with a soft kiss on his lips, before departing for another round of running. This single kiss was a promise, forgiveness, an absolution of his flaws and sins, an invitation, a renewal of her love.

In this instant, Bill comprehended feelings he had left in the darkness, dangerous feelings, better left unconscious. He had recognized that they were 'sine qua non' that he could not live without her. Romo Lampkin had put his finger right on it, right on the painful spot with his characteristic uncanny easiness in reading others' psyche. The admiral then became aware that his deepest weakness was the absence of this woman, stranded on the cylon ship, maybe dead, and that he could not live without her. She had become his partner, his life line, his confident, the only one knowing the darkest sides of his mind, his soul mate. He could not stay; he had to relinquish command and go find her.

When she stood there on the cylon baseship, alive and healthy, and hugged him with all the strength of her love, so emotional she barely could whisper _"I love you"_ in his ear, his life felt complete. She had walked an emotional path of her own during his absence, he could tell that much from the tears spilling on her face, but she did not confide what her ordeal had been.

Back on Galactica, he found out that Tigh was a cylon and she was the only one able with her tenderness to get him out of his despair. His world was upside down. How could Tigh, his oldest friend, be a cylon, an enemy, which betrayed him right from the beginning? It was easier to think of him that way, but indeed Tigh revealed himself to be as much a victim as Bill. Sleeper agent, his memory filled with false personal history, he was manipulated as much. It took Bill time to understand. Deep in his despair, his son Lee took over and arranged a deal with the cylons and together they traced the path to earth.

They had found earth; it was the end of the road. Or was it? The shock was staggering, plunging them in a deep misery on the scale of the hope they had held for three years. What did he do for Laura then? Nothing. He let her slip, unable to help her, unable to hold her back from the dark spiral she was falling in, too troubled himself with his own despair to take on hers. Since they had come back from earth, every conversation he had with her concerned her duties, her role as president, what she should do or not do, her work, her responsibilities, which she was avoiding. Each conversation was about pulling the president back into her role, to drag her out of her despair so that she could assume leadership, as before. He was not foreign to grief; he knew she needed peace and quiet to mend her broken faith and soul. But the fleet was falling apart quickly and a sense of urgency was grabbing him. He felt trapped, conflicted, wanting to give her time, yet time, he did not have.

 _"_ _Morale" he had said "is down the toilet"._

They needed a leader, a strong hand, a voice of hope, and the president was just absent. In his struggle to keep it all together and prevent the fleet from exploding, Bill was trying to convince the president, but had left Laura alone in her grief.

She had been destroyed at her very core. Her belief system was shattered; the very strength that had propelled her through the crisis and the hardest times was broken. She had made good and bad decisions in the name of survival, in the name of her belief that she would find earth for her people. How could she possibly justify her acts, if this was just a worthless dream, a Chamalla induced and diseased hallucination, born from a senseless belief in empty gods, written in an old piece of parchment, schizophrenic ramblings of a prophetess long lost in time, weathered with age and encrypted in meaningless metaphors? How many died because of Laura's ill-advised decisions?

Hostile fire, burning the book of Pythia, was reflected on her tears stricken face. That night, she had burned her soul with the book, burned her life, burned her past and was left empty, catatonic with grief in a fetal position, suspended in time on the cold and hard rug.

 _"_ _Because I was wrong… I was wrong about everything. All these people who I sent, they have trusted me and they followed me. All these people… they're dead."_ She had said to him and felt too unworthy, too ashamed of her faults, to even bear his comforting touch.

He had not known what to do to ease her pain and respected her wish to be left alone to weep her despair in the privacy of her room. But she had shut down all contacts with everyone, grieving the loss of her soul, of her faith.

Her world had been pushed upside down, inside out, senseless. Some of cylons they encountered were good, actually more human in their nature than some human themselves. They were after all the 13th colony and the scrolls of Pythia were telling of their story. What is human? What does it mean? Just being conscious, having free will, making ethical decisions, discerning between good and evil? Having blood and flesh? But skinjobs had blood and flesh. It was so much easier at the beginning: just a simple war, humans good, cylons the enemy. Clear cut, no questions asked. Laura had felt no remorse throwing Leoben out of an airlock or ordering the abortion of the unborn Hera. But now… now it was different. Skinjobs had freewill. They made their own decisions. Despite their physical cloning, they had developed individuality, made different choices from one another, decided on ethical paths; some of them evolved a heightened sense of morality. The cylons of the rebel ship were as human as she was. She regretted these decisions. She would not kill Leoben anymore, and Hera had saved her life. Their closest friends had been revealed cylons, virtually identical to humans, undistinguishable.

Tory had said to her: _"it might be worth pondering what else you have been wrong about."_

That little sentence kept on drilling in her mind like a perverse virus. Laura knew Tory was right. She had been wrong about a lot of things. She was a fraud indeed not so much different than Baltar. She felt some kind of connection with Baltar, a connection based on their similar sins and flaws. Maybe that is why she forgave him after all; he was too much like her, it was like seeing a reflection of her own faults in a mirror. Laura's heart was filled with regrets. Her actions had been based on fear, not love nor compassion. So many had died in a senseless war. For what? To discover than the cylons were not really the enemy, but that the real enemy laid in ourselves, in the hatred within each one of us. Laura did not know anymore. She was lost. The foundation of her strength had been disseminated by the blind and unforgiving truth of their origins. How could she possibly still lead them? Be the president?

And Bill… When he was hitting the bottom as well, Dee had committed suicide. Dee was his beloved daughter in law, a child, sweet and friendly. All of a sudden, Bill felt he had lost everyone, Dee, Laura, Starbuck, even his oldest friend Tigh, a cylon. He had wronged everyone. He had let down everyone. Why was he still alive? The fleet was falling apart; he was not much of a leader. He woman he loved most had slipped into a spiraling despair, letting herself die, canceling her chemotherapy sessions, letting the cancer take over her already weakened body. A custodian had reported to him that she had thrown all of her medication out. He did not know how to bring her back to the world of the living. It might have well been the end, the final chapter of their long journey.

Bill had kept coming to her saying _"we need you"_ , when he really meant "I need you".

As he looked at the long figure of the woman laying down on the sofa in the shadows of the cabin, buried in her book, vulnerable, her head in her scarf and her emaciated cancer ridden body sheltered in her pajamas and robe, he understood how fragile she just was, how scared and torn she had been. Laura, the woman, needed him, not Laura the president. He kept on telling her he needed the president, but he kept forgetting the woman behind the strong façade of the leader. The woman was shattered, the president was gone.

 _"_ _Remember what we said on New Caprica? How we talked about trying to live for today? We better think about that because…tomorrow really isn't coming… maybe today is all we have left"_ she had said.

Yes, of course, that night on New Caprica, when they had been free of their duties, just a man and a woman, not the president, not the leader of the colonies and him, just a guardian of the lighthouse, not much of an admiral anymore. She was just a simple woman wanting to live in the moment, wanting to love and being loved before it was too late, before disaster stroked again, without worrying about the future, death and destruction. They had lain on the sand bags in the stillness of the night, by her tent, intoxicated by alcohol and the smoking of weed, happy and carefree. When the night advanced and the cool air settled, she had snuggled in his arms and nuzzled his neck to let her cheek rest on his warm skin, holding him tight around his chest. He had kept control, enjoying the moment deeply, but not responding to her obvious demand. When she fell asleep, content, confident and comfortable with him, he pulled a blanket over their bodies and continued to hold her tenderly in his arms, enjoying their closeness, looking at her beautiful resting face, her closed eyes, peaceful, innocent. He kissed her forehead and closed his eyes. He was the admiral. He still had a duty. And even if Baltar was then the elected unworthy president, she remained his president. She would always be.

But the cylons had come back and unable to save them he had but one choice, to flee. He had let her down, escaped the cylons, while she was still on the planet. He stayed away consumed by guilt. Laura had been jailed in cylon detention, tortured, alone. So many died because he was unable to come and rescue them. It took only Athena, the cylon, to make him understand that he had to forgive himself before he could find the courage to go back and save them. Could he ever forgive himself? When she came back in power, he took him a long time before he could face her, trying very hard to erase that night on New Caprica, putting up barriers again, her, the president, him, the admiral. He stated it openly on the boxing ring during 'the dance', to her, to others… the dangers of getting too close.

These artificial barriers nevertheless slowly had eroded, with their growing intimate friendship, with the evenings spent nursing her cancer induced nausea, or resting in his quarters, with their uncompromising trust in each other. He had seen her at her worst, doubled over the toilet vomiting an already empty stomach. He had wiped her forehead with cool cloths and let her rest in his bed. Books read together, when she rested in sick bay, Doloxan dripping in her intravenous infusion, his voice comforting her, when her queasiness was taking her, when her body was shaking with side-effects induced tremors and weakness. He had never finished "Searider Falcon", but when he started the so dreaded final chapters and she had closed her eyes, he stopped reading from the book and read from his heart instead. She would know later, finishing the book in the raptor, that the words he whispered that day were his own and not the author's.

 _"_ _I couldn't feel anything. That's what scared me. You came into my thoughts. I felt them. I felt good."_

And then, she was lost to him again, hostage to the cylon baseship. And he could not pretend anymore that it did not matter, he had to find her, even if it put everyone in jeopardy.

Saul had put it right: _"You are risking all our lives for what? A missing pilot? No a woman… for a frakking woman."_

 _"_ _Watch what you frakking say about that woman. She is the president, not some frakking skinjob I have been banging."_

Bill had answered furious, denying his real feelings for her.

Maybe it was time for him to just see her as Laura, the woman that he loved.

At the return from earth, Laura had shed her presidency like a caterpillar cocoon, an old skin of appearances and pretense, of fake smiles and displayed anger. She had shed the politician mask of strength, a mask she had kept on before even when her body was betraying her, cancer eating her alive, the pain often unendurable, but still strong, in power, still the leader. Laura was reborn from her pain. She was becoming a butterfly, liberated of her constraining presidential jacket, accepting of her death, therefore free to live, love and suffer openly.

They could exchange silent thoughts, argue without mercy on their mutual flaws, as they had done so many times. Their arguments were those you can have only with your loved ones, without fear of losing each other. He remembered one instance when they had torn each other apart brutally, about Starbuck's conviction to get back to earth on her own. He had been drunk, unleashing at her his fears to lose all of them. She had tried to make him accept her timely death, when at the time she even had not accepted it herself. He had been unable to help her and comfort her here as well. And she had collapsed in tears after he left, when a clump of hair fell from her scalp, undeniable proof of the chemotherapy effects and of the disease ravaging her body. The next morning, he got up, the alcoholic hangover pounding his head, and found her asleep on the sofa, all dressed, her face smeared by dried tears and mascara. On the desk, near her pen and paper, a large bundle of red hair was left crumpled. He could have screamed his pain and his shame at the words he had thrown at her under the influence of the drinks.

Why was he so afraid? Indeed he was afraid of rejection, of failure. It would all go like his failed bitter marriage. He never was able to admit that it had been over between him and Carolanne. After all, he was still wearing his wedding band, unable to reconcile with his failure, unable to let go of the past, even after his wife had cursed him out of her life, even after she died. What did this say about him?

He was here in Laura's room, facing her, lost in his thoughts, looking at the woman. She was in pain, spiritual pain, emotional pain, and physical pain and he had been unable to help her, he had been unable to love her. In his clumsiness and his conflicted feelings, all he had been able to do was ask her to come back as the president.

 _"_ _We need you."_ He had said so many times.

He shrugged. That is what it was about really: his cowardice. He felt inadequate, unable to rule the fleet without her. He was scared without her at the lead. He could not do it. She was his strength. But she needed him more than they needed her at this moment.

 _"_ _I played my role in this farce"_ She had said. _"I've been there, I've done that. Now what? Is there another role that I have to play for the rest of my life?"_

And when she had searched his eyes for an answer, he had felt a rush of shame, at his selfishness and his inadequacies. She had confessed her love to him and he had let her down. He formulated the answer to her question only in his thoughts. Yes, there was for her a role to play, her last role, her only role, to be Laura, not the president, but Laura, his friend and his love.

He walked across the candle lit room. She did not move and continued to read her book impassively. Another mask she put, hiding behind the book, to avoid his probable lecture on taking back the role of the president.

"Laura" he whispered.

She shot a tensed smile up to him as a greeting and lowered her head back to the opened pages.

"Laura. I am really sorry" he hesitated, his voice betraying his emotion.

She did not lift her head, but she became completely still, her gaze fixed downwards. He could tell she was not reading anymore, her body tensed, her breath held tight in her chest.

"On New Caprica," he continued softly in a whisper, "that night we slept on the sandbags outside your tent, I should have lived for the moment… like you said." He sat slowly next to her on the sofa. "I did not want to hear what you were asking from me. We should have…"

She put her hand up cutting his speech.

"Bill, don't…" She interrupted her voice shaking, tears in her eyes. She took her glasses off and laid them carefully on the side table and closed slowly the book on her lap. She continued to look at the closed cover, listening to him, emotion etched on her face.

"I am sorry, Laura. I have not been here for you when you needed me. After earth's discovery, I only thought about keeping the fleet together. I thought only about how tough it would be to handle it without you, how inadequate I was dealing with this all by myself. I needed the president. I forgot about you, Laura. I forgot how much you needed me."

She was crying now, tears falling silently on her cheeks, releasing the long held bitter disappointment. He took her hand in his.

"I will not be selfish anymore" He whispered.

She had heard him say this in her vision on the cylon ship, when her future counterpart had just died.

"Laura." He took her face in his hands and leveled it to look in her tears filled eyes. "I just want you to be Laura, nothing more. This is the only role you have to play." And with this, he leaned to kiss her lips. "I love you" he murmured in her ear, as he almost had done once, when she came to visit him in the middle of the night from sick bay after the dead of Emily from cancer.

He would have said it then, after admitted to her _"you made me believe"_ , but the voice of Baltar over the wireless had spoiled the moment and she had insisted on listening to the broadcast, oblivious of the emotions that were tearing him apart.

But tonight, there was no radio, just the soft glow of candles in the darkness and this woman near him, who had lost nearly everything, her hopes, her faith, her self-confidence, her life, her hair. She had only him left. When their kiss deepened, he got worried and stopped to look in her eyes, questioning, seeking permission to continue.

"Yes, I want this." She said softly in a deep breath, answering his unspoken question, in a solemn tone. She leaned in his arms, hugging him closely. She let him disrobe her and remove her scarf to expose her bare scalp. He softly caressed and kissed the exposed skin of her head, precipitating another wave of tears from her.

"No," he said, "don't cry. You are beautiful, just like that." As he continued to remove her clothes, he felt as he was peeling off the layers of the cocoon from this woman caterpillar, soon to be reborn butterfly. He was worshipping her like a goddess, reverently embracing her, touching, smelling and kissing her skin with all of his passion, intoxicated by her body. And she smiled, and laughed, and cried, of happiness, joy and pleasure. When she was completely bared before him, he looked at her with tears in his eyes, tears of love, tears of desire, tears of grief. She was so thin that her bones were protruding on her chest and hips. Cancer had left its mark on her body. She looked most utterly naked without hair, yet unashamed to be exposed in such a way to him, her eyes glowing in anticipation, yearning and love.

He picked her up and tenderly carried her to the bed, removed his clothes and hugged her tightly against his skin. She buried in his arms and kissed him eagerly, becoming a complete whole person for the first time.

She was just Laura, bare in body and soul, her love for him over taking her entire being, ready to become someone bigger than herself, wiser, and transcendent of fear, petty politics and partisanship.

She was Laura, reborn out of love for him and by him, ready to live, ready to die peacefully, ready to love. She was the new born butterfly, magnificent, prepared to soar in the universe for the rest of a very short life. Laura would be the healer of humans and cylons alike, evanescent, flying to her destiny in her brief and transient life, and would lead her people to reconciliation, love and compassion.

Laura suddenly understood the true meaning of the book of Pythia. She did not have to play a role. She just had to exist. A leader does not have to actively lead, but has only to be followed and point to the future. It was not her choice, she would always be the dying leader.


End file.
